With the explosion of computers and computer networks, a typical computer lab may have many computers. As these computer labs have grown larger and larger, it has become increasingly difficult for personnel to be aware of what each and every computer is doing at a particular time.
Historically, large computer labs relied on a single proprietary system. For example, a large computer lab may have had one or two mainframe computers, where each computer had the same operating system. A smaller computer lab may have had several different types of computers, but typically all these computer systems would contain the same operating system. With the advent of "open" or UNIX operating systems, it is not uncommon for a computer lab to have computers using different types of operating systems within a single computer lab. A typical computer lab could have UNIX computers from Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, IBM, and Digital Equipment Corporation. Additionally, all of these different types of computers could also be part of a single computer network. The manager of the computer lab then has to be able to keep track of all these different types of computers. By keeping track, the manager may have to keep track of which computers are working at a particular time, and may also have to keep track of what is being operated on a particular computer. Even though all these computers may have UNIX operating systems, such UNIX operating systems are not the same. That is, each UNIX operating system differs according to the manufacturer of the computer.
These computers may be part of a processing system such as that contained in a data center, or could be used for other purposes. A typical purpose would be determining if each computer system was being used at a particular time or whether all the computers were actually running the particular task that they were supposed to at a given time. Previously finding out if the computers were active and what was being utilized on the computers was not a problem when all the computers in the lab have the same operating system, as the central host computer could simply communicate with each computer to find out the relevant information. As explained, current computer labs have different heterogeneous computer systems, earlier polling methods to determine that status and activity of the computers will not work.
Therefore, it is desired to have a method whereby a host is capable of effectively communicating with a plurality of remote computer systems, utilizing different or heterogeneous operating systems, and can ascertain desired information from the plurality of remote heterogeneous computers.